


Here

by lovestillaround



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, mentions of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-13
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-30 22:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13961058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovestillaround/pseuds/lovestillaround
Summary: sometimes Dan looks like an old train





	Here

It isn’t any different. It’s the same old story.

Phil has never expected things to change abruptly. He has never expected it from Dan and he would never demand it. So he isn’t surprised when the same thing comes back, the same issue. He isn’t surprised that the conversation they have sounds almost exactly like the last one.

It isn’t a Dan thing, it isn’t anything specific. That’s how people work, rolling the same thing over and over through their minds, picking at the edges and corners, hoping that something would change. Looking at the problem from different angles or just staring at it. Dealing with internal conflicts isn’t a productive activity.

Dan sometimes says that everything about him is just a big conflict, as if different parts of his brain weren’t able to make a unit and were constantly arguing with each other. No matter what he does, there is this conflict inside of him. There is always at least one part of his brain that goes ‘fight me’. Then there are other parts that follow and a storm is being created inside of his head, destroying every progress that he has made and making him feel vulnerable and stupid. Making him act like he isn’t who he is, forcing him to question himself, to question other people and their intentions. Dan says that this is terrible.

Phil believes him. He doesn’t know what Dan feels and he doesn’t understand why he feels like that but he definitely can empathise. Some of this inner storm is apparent on the outside and the forms of the expression are various. It’s every extreme – like loving and hating – and all what’s in-between.

Phil loves Dan’s brain. Maybe it is cruel to say that when he sees all this torment. He sometimes wants to reach inside of Dan’s head and change something – physically - because there is no other way, because Dan is stubborn and complicated and not easy.

It lasts only a moment because Phil respects him. He truly loves his brain, too. It gives him all these amazing things, all these deep and light conversations, all jokes and smiles. The only thing Phil doesn’t like is this part of the brain that messes up with Dan’s serotonin. Phil doesn’t know how it works or rather why is it not working properly, he honestly only knows that this is about serotonin. So yeah, he doesn’t like it. At all.

It’s the same story over and over because Dan is always insecure, as he says, always unsure. Right now Dan says that he’s miserable and pathetic because he can’t deal with his own shit. He always has to fuck everything up because he doesn’t know who he is and what he wants and because he always makes the wrong choices in general.

Phil has found him in the piano room. He was looking for him because it is 2 a.m. and he just missed him. He didn’t expect Dan to pace angrily, grab at the sleeves of his oversized sweater and just burst out with self-hatred. He expected him to be lying somewhere, if he’s got to be honest. Dan has been doing this a lot recently.

“Dan, please. You can’t say something like this. You know that it isn’t true.”

“It is!”

Dan looks like an old train. It totally shouldn’t cross Phil’s mind in a moment like this but it does. Dan looks like an old, heavy train with a lot of steam coming out of his head. There is some fire inside that Phil cannot see, some fuel being burned, the pressure so big that it cannot hold the heat. Where is he going? Where is the train going?

Phil has an image in his head, an image of an old steam locomotive. It isn’t only a picture, it is also loud and leaves heavy, dark clouds of exhaust gas behind, making everything dark and dirty, reducing visibility. Phil has some superpowers though. A special pair of lungs that enables him to breathe in this atmosphere, with a specific filter that doesn’t let the bad things get to him. A filter that catches all the toxic particles and holds them in between him and Dan.

“What is it, Dan?” he asks with a slight tone of resignation in his voice that he didn’t intend to be there.

“Everything.”

Dan looks at him and it seems that he’s suddenly more sad than angry. Phil comes up to him and pokes his nose.

“Wrong answer.”

Dan sighs.

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You are standing here, I suppose. You are standing, leaning onto the wall and looking at the floor and oh, now you’re looking at me! I’m Phil Lester, nice to meet you.”

Phil holds out his hand and Dan stares at him like he’s an idiot that he’s had misfortune to fall in love with. He smiles though, slightly, and then shakes Phil’s hand.

“Hello, Mr. Lester. Can Mr. Lester tell me what I should do to be normal?”

Phil purses his lips and pretends to think intensively about the answer.

“Mr. Lester doesn’t know exactly what’s the issue here but he has a prediction that it’s rather impossible for Mr. Howell to be normal. He also thinks that Mr. Howell is a lovely freak.”

Dan sits down on the floor and pats Phil’s leg as a signal to do the same. Phil does it. He crosses his legs as Dan lies down and Phil immediately regrets that he didn’t suggest going to the bedroom. He knows Dan could fall asleep just on the floor.

“I really don’t know what I’m doing, Phil.”

It’s an old tactic. Sometimes it helps to just distract Dan, make him forget about the thoughts that his brain is creating. Sometimes it doesn’t help.

“Nobody knows what they are doing. We are all just people.”

Phil moves closer and buries his hand in Dan’s hair. It’s hard for him to resist that. He could write poems about these fluffy curls that are so soft and different every day and make Dan look so lovely. He will write a poem about it. And show it to Dan of course.

“But my level of being a fuck-up is above the average.”

Phil has no other option than to poke Dan’s cheek repeatedly.

“Try something more positive.”

Dan grabs Phil’s hand to stop him and Phil leaves his face in peace. For now.

Dan thinks for a moment and Phil turns back to stroking his fluffy hair. So soft. So good.

“I think that I cause unnecessary drama only because I react too emotional to the things that people say. I should be better than this. This is so pathetic.”

Phil puts his whole palm onto Dan’s face this time. Dan whines and grabs Phil’s wrist. He puts Phil’s hand onto his own chest, holding it there and playing with his fingers.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to be like this,” he says after a while.

Phil sighs quietly.

“It’s okay.”

Dan closes his eyes and doesn’t say anything for a moment. He usually looks calm with his eyes closed but not now. Now he seems tense. Maybe Phil should offer him a massage or a bath. It’s late but maybe this is something what he needs.

“I don’t want people to hate me but maybe they are right, you know? Maybe the problem here is that my authentic self is really unbearable.”

Phil can’t listen to this bullshit.

“Dan, look. Even if everybody in the world hated you, it doesn’t matter. I love you. Your friends love you, your family, my family. And we know you far better than the rest of the world. You can’t try to please everyone.”

Dan opens his eyes and looks at the ceiling.

“It’s not about pleasing everyone. It’s about being stupid because I don’t know what I want and what I’m doing. I wanted everything to be good but I’ve made everything so much worse.”

“So what? Everybody does that. It doesn’t matter in the end, it isn’t that important. You don’t hate me for the mistakes that I make, do you?”

Dan turns over and looks at Phil. There is this sharpness in his eyes, as if his pupils could turn into squares from it at any moment. That is a rather terrifying vision and Phil shakes it off.

“I just wanted to be happy. I thought that I can’t because I’m not authentic enough but it isn’t that. I don’t know what it is.”

“Baby…”

Phil caresses his arm slowly and gently. It always hurts. It always hurts to think that Dan needs to fight for happiness, that it isn’t just a state that is natural and achievable at any moment. It hurts that Phil can’t just give it to him. He would.

“Don’t talk to me like this. It’s gonna make me cry.”

Dan sounds bitter and tired.

“There’s no need to put so much pressure on yourself, Dan. Take a deep breath, distance yourself from it. You’ll think about it later, what you wanna do and all that kind of staff.”

“But it’s been so long. It’s been so long, Phil. And I still haven’t figured anything out.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. Because everybody would be happy if they had love, money, a job that they like and everything else that I have. But I’m not. What is it that I want? Why does my life seem so wrong that I have this need to change something literally all the time?”

Phil does a movement with his arm that tells Dan to calm down. He then lies down beside him, so that their faces are close, so that they can look at each other from a near distance.

“Breathe, Dan. I’m counting. One…”

Dan takes a breath after every number that Phil says, a breath that’s deep and slow. It is also one of Phil’s tactics. He usually doesn’t have difficulties with staying calm, it is easy for him to remind Dan that he needs to breathe, that he doesn’t need to scream or think, that everything is okay.

Phil stops counting after saying ‘ten’ and waits. It’s calm now, just them and their breaths and it sounds kind of cheesy even in his head. Phil likes these moments though, these moments that are just for them. Maybe he shouldn’t like this moment because they are lying on the floor when there is no need to do that. There is theoretically no need to lie on the floor ever. The surface is hard and usually cold and you don’t feel comfortable, your body is aching after some time, there are really no advantages of that. Except that this is life. Life is an advantage. Life with Dan is always an advantage.

“Let’s go to bed. We’ll have some good sleep and in the morning I’ll make us pancakes. Think about it, some delicious pancakes, straight from the pan.”

“With nutella,” Dan mumbles.

“Yes. These will be the best pancakes in the world.”

“Sure they will, masterchef.”

Phil laughs shortly, sitting up and taking Dan’s hand. Dan sits up, too. He looks like a puppy, his hair is all messed up.

There is something wrong though and Phil needs a moment to realise what it is. He has this habit of looking for things that no one else sees, that are hidden or covered. Maybe that’s why he loves Dan so much. Because Dan is fascinating in every way, he’s multilayer, he’s folds and edges and steps and cliffs. He’s dark clouds and laser rays and grains of sand. And something, something that Phil doesn’t understand, like a book in a foreign language, like a modern painting or a computer code, like a colourful pattern on a silky fabric or a handwriting that is unreadable. Phil always feels this triumph when he learns something new about him, he doesn’t want to discover everything at once. He also fills up with satisfaction every time he sees something in Dan that other people wouldn’t notice.

“Unclench your jaw.”

Phil’s fingers are grabbing Dan’s chin, gently, without turning his head over, just being there and caressing his skin.

Dan rubs his hand over his cheek, wincing in realisation of something that he wasn’t really aware of.

“It hurts actually.”

“Stick out your tongue.” 

Dan glares at him with this look saying ‘I’ve got an idiot for a boyfriend’ but Phil doesn’t care. His tongue is already out and he’s hitting Dan’s arm like he always does when he wants him to do something. 

Dan puts his tongue out probably to just mock Phil.

“Can you touch your nose with your tongue?” Phil asks and Dan’s eyes sharpen in a pretended irritation.

“No, I can’t,” he answers in a voice that is a little posh, with a strong accent put on every word. Phil loves that voice. He loves when they are annoying each other. 

“Show me.”

Phil is a master in annoying Dan. He knows it for sure because Dan mentions that any time he can. Phil torments Dan every day, that’s what he says. 

Dan rolls his eyes and sticks out his tongue again, wrinkling as he tries to touch his nose, unsuccessfully.

“You’re a fish.”

“What?”

Dan’s eyes are shining and he smiles. It isn’t a big smile, it is a smile that is barely there but Phil feels proud of himself. He makes a bubble fish face and Dan mimes him, but it lasts only a second before he lets the air out of his mouth.

“That’s not intimidating enough. I’m an aggressive fish.” 

He moves closer and bites on Phil’s shoulder. Phil lays his hand onto Dan’s forehead and gently puts his head off.

“Fish don’t bite.”

“Of course they bite. How do you think they eat?”

Dan’s voice is higher and loud and this is good. There are days when his voice is only a whisper or when Phil doesn’t hear his voice at all. These days are worse, even though Dan always says that he doesn’t feel bad. He says that he feels nothing at all and nothing can’t be bad, nothing is just nothing. It is bad though and they both know that. They don’t discuss it because it wouldn’t make sense, this is just how it is, no conversation would change that. Except for a conversation with a therapist maybe but Phil isn’t a therapist and he wouldn’t want to be one. This isn’t his role. Phil’s role is to be there, to support and help, to love and to speak, of course, but not in the way therapists do. Phil wouldn’t touch Dan’s brain, he loves it too much, he wouldn’t take the risk. He has no skills and it would be too personal, no, his role is different.

“Aren’t they like swallowing things?”

Dan furrows his brow like he always does.

“Oh, I don’t know. We need to look it up.”

“Come here,” Phil says even though Dan is right beside him. 

He wants to reach to his face and give him a massage. His hands land on Dan’s chin, his fingers press onto soft flesh and Dan closes his eyes. Maybe Phil does it badly, maybe it doesn’t help at all but Dan doesn’t protest.

“Anyway, you’re not an intimidating fish,” Phil says after a while. “You’re more like Dory from ‘Finding Nemo’.”

“Excuse me?”

Dan backs up, his face showing up utter disappointment but Phil still sees softness there and he laughs, sticking out his tongue a bit, laying his hand onto his chest. 

He knows what is going to come. He knows that Dan is going to tell him that Dory is obviously more like Phil and not him, in a dramatic voice, as if it really was the biggest offence he’s ever heard.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr [lovestillaround](https://lovestillaround.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
